Me: Frank Lynch

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These are my mundane daily ramblings.
For something less spontaneous, I maintain The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page (over 1,600 Johnson quotes), with a weekly essay springing from one of Johnson's quotations.

Bio:
Born 1957, raised in Florida, moved to New York area in 1982; now live in Brooklyn.
Married, with one kid unit.
Former marketing research professional. Now drawing no salary, but working on a book.

Email:
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lynch2
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That terror level color coding scheme... I'm not sure if this has been discussed elsewhere, but you'll recall that when the level is increased, it's not clear how they decide to bring it back down. And, since it's based on intelligence, the level is not exactly open to independent discussion and verification. I can imagine this being manipulated at will in 2004 as the election approaches. Am I crazy? Well, where are the WMDs? (Maybe the Democrats need to come out with a parallel state of the economy rainbow...)
Link

June 24, 2003:

Anyone want to send this headline back for a rewrite? The New York Times has this headline: "Syrians Wounded in Attack by U.S. on Convoy in Iraq." But read the article and you might think the headline should have been, "US May Have Violated Syrian Sovereignty."

Summer doldrums hit the place early. The Kid Unit, an only child, is having to grapple with a lack of playdates. But it's not like there is nothing to do, I assure you: plenty of thank-you notes to write, following the birthday; lots of good books to read; opportunities to go in the park. And there are playdates, it's just that someone needs to learn to play independently and be patient.

Finally, the rain seems to have stopped. (I bet I'm not the only New Yorker writing about this.) But yesterday as sunny, and so is today. On Saturday I went into Chinatown to get some crabs, and while Canal Street is always crowded on a Saturday, the need for umbrellas made it far worse. But not so bad as to keep me away.

Something unpleasant is roosting in my PC, and I pray I won't need to reformat the hard drive again. When I have a browser up (could be any brand), resources get consumed, the machine can freeze, and my bandwidth gets sucked up. The Task Manager shows a blank line — suggesting an unidentified program — and I can't highlight the line or shut it down. Similar programs like Process Explorer show it, but I can't get rid of it. (It disappears shortly after closing all browsers.) Complete virus scans turn up nothing, as do SpyBot and LavaSoft's AdAware.

June 21, 2003:

All sorts of ambivalence on June 21. The most dramatic and rewarding pull is in the direction of the Kid Unit: today is the KU's 10th birthday, and without getting too weepy eyed in this very public space, let me assure you that it is a wonderful process to see this little one grow, and also a melancholy one to imagine that one day the KU will look elsewhere for love and fulfillment. It is our job, as parents, to get over that: parents have always gone through this.

Now, no slight to the Kid Unit, but June 21 is also the first day of summer and Ray Davies' birthday. This year, talking about summer in NYC as if it starts on June 21 will start a very depressing conversation: it's been ridiculously wet, and the fashion is umbrellas. But Ray Davies is another matter: sadly, talking about Ray Davies will generally get you a blank stare. But I've been listening to wonderful songs like Artificial Man tonight, and there's no question about it... Both Ray and the Kid Unit make this a wonderful day on the calendar.

June 18, 2003:

Was this what it was like? Earlier this night (it's past midnight on June 17, officially June 18) the Kid Unit and I watched Superman II. For a 1980 film set in "Metropolis," it sure did have its NYC settings. When I grew up, I always read Marvel Comics, where they made no bones about the setting of NYC. None of this "Metropolis," or "Gotham City." Superman II, set in Metropolis, of course, showed Manhattan, the Brooklyn Bridge, and so on. But that scene late in the movie where the three villains from Krypton bust through the office partitions and glass walls of the Daily Planet, well, it was tough to watch: I couldn't help but wonder if that juggernaut was what people felt in the upper floors of the WTC on September 11. Flat out, it gave me the creeps, and I hope you'll excuse me if I tell you I didn't share these thoughts with the little one.

The chains of opinion. So, Eric Alterman wrote this book. And like many others, I felt positively about it, and gave it a positive review here. Clear so far?

This being a free country, Jonah Goldberg disagreed. Disagreement is fine, but there were a number of areas where I felt Goldberg was off base (and couldn't blame the throw for dragging him so). So, I responded in the confines of the Opinion Journal web site with this:

This review of Eric Alterman's "What Liberal Media" lacks rigor, is intellectually shallow, and may be intentionally dishonest. It is not clear that Goldberg has actually read the book, based on his characterizations of its content. What is clear is that Goldberg has not tested his writing against the logical conclusions, and has not looked for disconfirming information before drawing his conclusions.

First, Alterman did not "simply dismiss" the survey which reported the number of Washington bureau reporters who voted for Clinton, and Alterman did far more than merely locate Clinton on the liberal-conservative scales of other countries. Alterman put candidate Clinton on the liberal-conservative scale for the United States, and reminded us that Clinton did not run as a liberal, but as a "New Democrat." Candidate Clinton, you will recall, posed in front of a prison cell with African-Americans behind the bars. Candidate Clinton, Sidney Blumenthal has reminded us, signed the death warrant for a mentally retarded prisoner. So, voting for Clinton, as Alterman pointed out, was not exactly a litmus test to demonstrate a reporter is liberal. Alterman also went on to question the generalizability of the survey itself, based on the return rates. Another point Alterman raised was that individual reporters are too far down the corporate food chain to have an impact on their articles' positions: above the reporters are levels of editors, paper publishers, and corporate owners of those papers. If Goldberg had read all of Alterman's book, he would have noted that Alterman's discussion of the survey ran several pages, and was far more than a "simple dismissal."

In addition, Goldberg characterized Alterman as being blinded as a result of writing for The Nation. This is not rigorous thinking. For this to hold true, William Safire would also have to be blinded by writing for The New York Times. Unless, of course, Goldberg doesn't think The New York Times is as liberal as many people think it is — an understandable conclusion, since The New York Times worked so hard to fuel the fires of Whitewater. But then, if Goldberg were to admit that the New York Times is not liberal, that would be consistent with what Alterman's point is. So, by pursuing this ad hominem slur of Alterman, Goldberg has walked into one of Alterman's primary contentions.

I could go on, but I will not: it is not my job to add rigor to your columnists writings; that is the job of your editors. I look forward to your taking this step in the future.

June 17, 2003:

Is Andrew Sullivan getting it right? Or wrong? In another entry I worried that feelings of power might lead bloggers to miss priorities. Now, Andrew Sullivan is trying to focus all the bloggers who read his column into addressing Iran. (See July 9.) Sullivan doesn't say why this issue is more important than any other; that is, no justification of his priorities. Wouldn't one think that was necessary?

Telemarketers have found my mother in law, who suffers from Alzheimer's, and every month something new winds up in her mailbox with a bill attached. How come we didn't think to register her for the NY State "do not call" list sooner?

June 13, 2003:

Another way to taunt the Kid Unit. The Kid Unit and I have an overly vociferous rivalry over KU's New York Yankees and my Atlanta Braves. (Our fourth au pair was here during the first World Series when the Braves faced the Yanks, and out of joking spite turned the Kid Unit into a Yankee fan. The Kid Unit and I have ever since displayed our contentions throughout the streets of Park Slope.)

Today, the Kid Unit, a school chum, and I were walking home from Brooklyn Aquarium, with a couple bumblebee fish in a plastic bag. The Kid Unit and the chum had agreed that each would name one of the fish, and they both would be hosted in the Kid Unit's 5 gallon tank. For some reason, the chum called named one of the fish "Corner," perhaps because of where it rested in the plastic bag. But I heard "Horner", and it occurred to me, that if our plans for a 30 gallon tank in the living room come to pass, that it would be great salt in the wound if I named every fish in that tank after an Atlanta Brave.

For instance, "what would a Biff Pocoroba fish look like? What kind of fish would we give the name Hammerin' Hank to?" The two kids thought I was nuts, but I egged them on, and said, look, if you don't think this is a good idea, ask that guy up there. (Neither of them noticed that the guy I pointed out was wearing a Braves cap...)

June 11, 2003:

My old industry is imploding. For about 20 years, I worked in marketing research: first, as an actual researcher for about 15 years (writing the surveys and doing the analyses and presentations), then a few years on the corporate side, commissioning the research in order to address marketing needs, and lastly on the marketing side using the research. It's been clear, from the available jobs, that the economy is not doing well, and it's made more sense for me to work on a book and spend time with family.

But I'm hearing of more and more research companies buying each other (Ab told me of another big one last night), and that the suits in the industry are trying to eliminate 'redundancy.' This, of course, means that it will be even less likely that I'll return to my old industry any time soon, and that a career change will probably be necessary. Not fun, at age 46. (Speaking on mortality, Johnson once wrote to Reynolds, "That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner." I wish, back in the eighties, when I realized my job was burdensome with little recompense, that I'd switched to something else.

A surprising miss by another blogger. As a description of what it feels like to run a web log, one of the Samuel Johnson quotations on my web site was picked up by another blogger. In turn, it got picked up by a few other bloggers, and it then caused a blip at blogdex. The surprising part to me, was, that I'd spent a lot of time putting individual quotation links on every single quotation, so the first blogger could have readers directly to that quotation, but instead the blogger linked to the whole page. And it was just for such purposes that I put those links in!

Update: Bellona Times, the site which originally linked the aforesaid quotation, was kind enough to revise its link so that it would take readers to the specific quotation. Try doing revisions that quickly in print!

June 6, 2003:

What is 'America' these days? The shake-up at the New York Times yesterday, and the reactions I've read, have given me pause to think. I won't defend Howell Raines: I'm not a journalist, and am in no position to judge whether or not his exit was necessary. But for my thoughts right now, that's almost irrelevant, so ok, let's say it was.

But let's look at the reactions. Andrew Sullivan, who has had it out for Raines for a very long time, writes (The Internet Did It):

"Only, say, five years ago, the editors of the New York Times had much more power than they have today. If they screwed up, no one would notice much. A small correction would be buried days, sometimes weeks, later. They could spin stories with gentle liberal bias and only a few eyes would roll. Certainly no critical mass of protest could manage to foment reform at the paper. And the kind of deference that always existed toward the Times, and the secretive, Vatican-like mystique of its inner workings kept criticism at bay. But the Internet changed all that. Suddenly, criticism could be voiced in a way that the editors of the Times simply couldn't ignore. Blogs - originally smartertimes.com, then this blog, kausfiles.com and then Timeswatch.com and dozens and dozens of others - began noting errors and bias on a daily, even hourly basis. The blogosphere in general created a growing chorus of criticism that helped create public awareness of exactly what Raines was up to. Uber-bloggers like Drudge were able to take that to the mainstream media; and reporter-bloggers like Seth Mnookin picked up the baton. This media foodchain forced transparency on one of the most secretive and self-protective of institutions. It pulled the curtain back on the man behind the curtain. We did what journalists are supposed to do - and we did it to journalism itself."

I see that argument, but where Sullivan sees it as a qualitative leap over past media resources, I see it as more of a progression. Talk-Radio (er, Rush) has long been a force along these lines. Part of me thinks this goes back to the divisiveness of the Viet Nam war period, and the amount of vitriolic invective which has grown over time, whether it be regarding Nixon, Carter, or Clinton. There is a new element in what Sullivan writes, but I'm not sure he sees it: triumphalism over Raines' departure is abundant. It's a glee thing, almost: not just over the "happy" result that Raines had to leave, but ownership in the effect, and a feeling of joy not just of being there for it, but that he (and other bloggers) personally achieved it.

(In fairness, bloggers did feed the fire, but if internal morale wasn't so bad I bet Raines would have been able to hang on.)

This kind of spirit — almost a feeling of being a successful bully — is dangerous for the Republic, I think. Confidence in one's prowess can get in the way of understanding priorities, and the wrong goals get pursued. As Eric Alterman pointed out last Friday, issues are not receiving their due attention. A case in point is this past week's FCC decision allowing greater concentration in the media for the media corporations, potentially leading to far less diversity of expression. It will effect everything we see, hear, and read. As he put it, "We should point out that outside of NPR and Bill Moyers' NOW on PBS, the issue is getting hardly any coverage at all in the SCLM. It is, might I add, approximately a million times more important that Rick Bragg's reporting habits such as they were." (Perhaps the bloggers were snowballed by a claim that because of channels like web logs there is greater diversity now and that won't be threatened — but how many people really read these blogs?)

And compare the amount of coverage for Clinton and his scandals to what they really turned out to be. Whitewater was nothing. Monica Lewinsky was a private indiscretion, pushed to the point where one side felt a strong need to humiliate Clinton. Why? Because people were chomping at the bit to be bullies.

June 5, 2003:

Now THIS is interesting... (to me, anyway). Someone came to my Web site through a link at a Web site called "americandigest.org." But whatever that web site is, they don't want you to know who they are.

• Although they've gotten prominent links, such as on Glenn Reynold's InstaPundit list of links, their entire site is password protected, and you can't see anything but the home page.
• The "who is" database says nothing: it's hosted out of Canada, but all the contact email address say "not@available.org" and there are no snail mail addresses or owners listed.

What I could see sounded a bit creepy. All that either their home page or their Google search result says is "Dispatches from the New America." Alta Vista showed me some items which link to it... One from late June or early July seems to have attracted attention: " Secret Minutes of the Gay Mafia is a hilarious parody of Michael Ovitz's recent complaint that his career was ruined by the 'gay mafia.'" But the link on that page won't help you, because you now need a password. At another point they apparently hosted a web log from an anonymous marine (use your browser's "find" function for the phrase "anonymous marine".)

I completely support free speech, and can understand why someone would want to protect their anonymity when expressing their views. But why would you put it all under password protection? Why put up content, and later decide that no one should be able to read it? Strange.

Update, June 23: American Digest is now publicly accessible. Traffic to samueljohnson.com is thanks to their including a link in their right margin.

June 4, 2003:

Say it ain't so, Sammy. Last night Sammy Sosa was ejected when his shattered bat was found to have cork in it. This is a blemish on some severely great numbers. But the line is that he claimed it was for batting practice? Excuse me? How could that possibly help you practice?

Clarification and Update: Sosa's excuse was not that the corked bat helped him in batting practice, so much as it made it more exciting for the fans watching him practice. All 76 of his other bats were x-rayed, and none had cork.

Ain't nothin' like the Shostakovich string quartets for a cold, miserable morning. And extra coffee.

The dry days have been few and far between, and I admit that last night's rain kept me from going to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's charity night. But Ab took a couple kids (ours and a friend) and they had a good time. (All events and dinner tables were moved indoors.) I took good advantage of the quiet, though, and wrote. On Sunday the Kid Unit and I were walking along side Prospect Park, in jackets and sweatshirts, in the rain, and we had trouble believing it was June.

Did NASA do all it could to save the Columbia astronauts? Apparently not, according to MSNBC.com.